


Hope to the Last

by Fenix21



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Angst, Episode: s03e09 The Tholian Web, Grief/Mourning, M/M, T'hy'la
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 07:31:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4011184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fenix21/pseuds/Fenix21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spock cannot give up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hope to the Last

_“There’s nothing out there to grab a hold of and bring in. When that ship went it must have taken the captain with it!”_

 

Scotty’s brogue was thick.  It always got that way when he was emotionally stressed.  It did not help him in poker games.

McCoy stood to the side of the transporter controls.  He stared at Scotty like he had just grown an extra head and stated the absolute impossible to believe.

Checkov was shaking, his eyes filling while he assimilated the meaning behind Scotty’s desperate outburst.

And then there was Spock.

He looked like a statue carved in darkest obsidian, standing at the controls, his long fingers poised for an action that it would be useless to take.  He was frozen, not acknowledging Scotty’s words with so much as a blink.  He stared at the transporter pad and pulled in a long slow breath through his nose.  His heart, which was always pounding at twice the rate of a human’s, tripped, stumbled,  and twisted on itself before resuming anything like its normal rhythm.  He lowered his hands, resting them on cold metal.  He wanted to rip into that metal, to make it give him the power he needed to get his captain back.  To get Jim back.

But that action would serve no purpose.  He breathed in again as logic slowly filtered back to him, taking over the worst of the pain and thrusting it aside to be dealt with—later.  He turned away from the transporter and walked out of the room.  He could feel eyes on his back, questioning, glaring, burning in fury.  There was no help for it.  They would never see the void of loss that so suddenly opened beneath Spock’s heart, growing ever bigger with each passing moment, that threatened to swallow that heart whole and then to take him.  And so, they would never understand.  The only man who ever had, or would have, was no longer there, and but for him, it would not be there to see.

\-----

“What’s the use of this battle, Spock?   You’ve lost Jim.  Take the ship out of here.”

Spock stared at the view screen.  There was no use.  McCoy was right.  Jim was gone…dead.  Retrieving him here, now, had been the only option.  Logic dictated it.  Spock thrust that logic aside and grasped onto a tiny, shimmering thread hung in the shadows of his mind.  It was not a place he looked often, had not, in fact, looked at since his early childhood until he encountered James Kirk.  Kirk had shed light into that little used space.  He had coaxed and cajoled and finally demanded it, forcing Spock to use his human qualities.  It was one of those particular qualities that made him defy decades of training in logic, now.

“Ready, Mr. Sulu.”

“Ready, Mr. Spock.”

_Illogical…_

“Fire.” 

And it went to hell.  Spock had known the odds.  Logic dictated the odds, and they were too  poor to gamble with.  He had defied them on a last desperate hope; something logic could not understand.  He could live with his failure.

However, he had not intended the doctor to be there to view his lapse.

 “Spock, why did you do it?” McCoy growled fiercely.  “You must have known what would happen!  You should have done everything in your power to safeguard your ship and your crew.  That’s the mark of a good starship captain.  Like Jim—”

“This is hardly the time for such comparisons, Doctor,” Spock cut McCoy off decisively.  The Doctor could not detect the animal fury beneath the statement.  He was oblivious to any emotion that lurked beneath Spock’s tough exterior.  He forever complained that the Vulcan had no emotions, but he was blind to what was right in front of him.  

Spock would not be compared to Jim Kirk.  The man was beyond comparison, and no one, save Spock, knew better how he would have handled exactly the same situation had anyone other than himself been in danger.

“There was not time for any other course of action , Doctor.  I did what was necessary.”

 _Liar_.   McCoy glared.

Spock had never lied.  Vulcans did not lie.  But since coming here, being on this ship, watching Jim weasel his way through so many life or death situations and always come out on the winning side; Spock had learned the value of omitting certain truths.  His omission now was out of desperation, though he would tell himself now, and to anyone in the future, that he had been emulating his Captain’s dedication to saving a life, no matter the risk or how contrary to logic it may seem.  The unspoken truth that both of them would recognize, though the Doctor would not hold it as motive enough to endanger the entire ship, was that Spock simply could not leave Jim Kirk to die.

How little did they all know as they stood there looking to him for guidance and understanding, that he was containing a hurricane within him.  His dark eyes were shuttered against the tidal forces threatening to undo him from within.  If he gave in and let go of the last thread of hope, the storm would destroy him.  Logic countered every slim chance that Jim might survive until the next inter-phase, but Jim Kirk was a study in the defiance of logic.  He would survive.  He had to.

\-----

They were assembling quietly, resolutely, determined to respect their Captain to the end and not indulge in any overt shows of grief.  Only Uhura could not contain herself, and while tears tracked down her dark cheeks, she still kept her chin held high and her shoulders back.

Spock stood behind the podium, looking down at the blank grey surface.  Very few people remembered that Vulcans were telepathic.  Their skills were limited to touch telepathy apart from  those exceptional circumstances where a great many beings were gathered in a group with one common thought in their minds.  In such cases, the telepathy acted more as a conduit for the emotional strength behind the thoughts in the form of empathy.  Vulcans, not holding with emotional display, were immune to such psychic outpourings.  But Spock’s blood was not wholly Vulcan, and its human components focused all too easily on the ebb and flow of grief in the crew members gathered before him.

McCoy was the last to enter, pausing in the doorway.  Spock tracked to him and latched on like a drowning man.  He stepped off the dias and approached the doctor.

“Doctor McCoy, your last report showed no results toward an antidote for the crew’s growing mental instability.”  Spock’s voice was cold and clipped, more so than he intended, but the strain on his mental barriers was growing and threatening collapse.  He could not afford to indulge the doctor’s emotional eccentricities. 

It was an obvious effort, but McCoy reigned in his tongue and replied evenly, “Theragin looks like our most promising subject yet, but we’re still running tests.”

“Then, Doctor, might I suggest, since your highest priority is finding an antidote to curtail the spread of this mental disease, that your presence would be better served in your lab.”

McCoy nearly snarled.  One more push like that and he was going to go head to head with the Vulcan, no matter the odds.  He ground his teeth and gave the only response the Vulcan would honor, a logical one.  “Mr. Spock, my teams are working around the clock.  My presence will do nothing to speed the process and my highest priority at this moment is being here at this ceremony.”

McCoy could see Spock’s shoulders pull back, his jaw clamp just a little harder.  The Vulcan was using every ounce of restraint he had at his disposal, but it wasn’t against McCoy.  He squinted at the taller man. 

“You don’t believe he’s dead, Spock.  I know you.  You should believe it, but you don’t.  So, why are you doing this?”

“For the obvious reasons, Doctor.  You yourself stated that the Captain’s odds at survival passed the point of possibility over an hour ago.  It is not possible that he is still alive, regardless of what I choose to believe.  Therefore, I am performing the functions traditional to humans when a comrade is lost.”

McCoy didn’t buy it for a second.  “It isn’t logical to hope past possibility, Spock.”

Spock did not reply.  He stared at McCoy, and for just a fraction of a second, Bones thought he saw a flicker of something that resembled stark anguish in the depths of those devil black eyes.  He glared at Spock a long moment, daring him to tell the truth, and then turned away to take a seat.

The ceremony was brief, interrupted by the outburst of another infected crew member which served only to heighten the tension and fear in the room.  When Spock stepped down again from the dais, his head was pounding and the last thing he wanted was another verbal tet `a tet with Doctor McCoy who planted himself solidly in front of Spock as he attempted to leave.

“Now that you’ve officially declared the Captain dead, Spock, there is one more duty left to be done.”

“And that would be?”

“Reading the Captain’s final orders.”

“A task that can wait until a less urgent moment, I think, Doctor,” Spock replied tiredly.  He could not stomach hearing Jim’s last orders.  Such an action would bring with it a finality that Spock was not willing to entertain yet.

“No, Mr. Spock, we’ll do it now.  It’s the Captain’s orders.”  

 “Very well, Doctor, if you insist.”

McCoy stared wide eyed at Spock, jaw slack in a protest cut short.  It was a rare thing that Spock gave into McCoy on anything, trivial or life threatening.  It took him a moment to wind down from his prepared argument, and then he nodded and followed the Vulcan to Jim’s quarters.  

He trailed a step behind the taller man, noting the extreme tension in the shoulders, the rigid control that radiated like a shield, the crisp and precise movements, perhaps too precise; trying all the while to find a handhold that he could use to bring Spock back to himself.  At the rate he was going, the stress was going to demolish him, the crew, possibly the whole ship.  Spock wasn’t stable.  He wouldn’t recognize that, but that was no different than Jim in his stubborn moments.  McCoy would have to make him look, really look at the truth of the situation.  Jim Kirk was dead.  He wasn’t coming back.  Spock had to come to grips with that.  Maybe seeing Jim’s last orders would do the trick.

They entered Jim’s quarters and McCoy noted absently that Spock did not need a security override to open the Captain’s personal safe.  He knew the combination.

Spock pulled out a small blue box, non-descript, and piled among a dozen others that contained the many medals Kirk had earned over his young life.  His fingertips brushed the surface,  almost caressing it.  McCoy swore the hand trembled just the smallest bit.  

“All for nothing,” McCoy murmured.  “All those medals and honors, and he died for nothing.”

Spock’s fingers froze over the box, he spoke without looking up, his voice dark and dangerous.  “We came here for a specific purpose, Doctor.”

“But maybe not the same one,” McCoy sniped at him.  He crossed his arms.  “I really came to find out why you stayed and fought.”

“I did nothing that the Captain would not have done were the life of another member of the crew at stake, regardless of the danger to the ship or crew.”

“But Jim was dead, Spock.  You didn’t have that choice to make,” McCoy pressed.  “I still don’t understand, Spock.  Why did you do it?  You could have assured yourself of a Captaincy by leaving the area, but you stayed.  Why?”

Spock’s hand wrapped around the leather box, holding on for dear life.  His control was in shreds.  Jim was here, in this room, in every shadow, just out of his line of vision.  He could smell him, his earthen scent, clean and bold and exuding strength and a thousand times more passion than any average human heart could contain.  His fingers locked around the box, his mind focused on the texture, the color, the purpose behind the contents, the need to take care that he did not crush it in his grip.  It contained a piece of metal, meaningless to anyone but Jim.  It was a medallion Spock had fashioned many months ago.  It was a relief of the old Vulcan symbol for the word T’hy’la.  It translated most closely to ‘my love.’ 

Damn McCoy.  Did he truly think so little of him to accuse him of usurping Jim’s rank and ship?  Spock had never desired command, though he was more than suited it.  His place was at Jim’s right hand, and now that that hand was gone, he had no place to be.  No anchor.

“I do not need to explain myself to you or any other member of this crew.  There is a margin of variation in any experiment.  While there was a chance, I was bound legally and morally to ascertain the Captain’s status.”  Spock’s voice was still pitched low, and there was a note of warning in it.

McCoy watched Spock’s every twitch and the flex of every muscle.  The man was breaking.  Right in front of him, the man was breaking.  It was like watching water on rock from one millennia to the next.  Spock’s coveted facade of indifference and logic was being eroded away one small grain at a time.

And suddenly the pieces fell into place.

Spock had the ability to act logically in the face of death.  Even with the death of his own father looming he had acted out of logic and not from the heart; but logic was failing him now.  Worse, he was lying to himself about it.  McCoy did not pretend to understand the nuances of the friendship Jim and Spock shared.  But Spock’s actions now were speaking to something far greater and more complex than a mere friendship.  Spock loved Jim; more than that, perhaps, he was in love with him. 

McCoy ignored the warning in Spock’s voice.  “You had to be sure Jim was dead.”

Spock’s eyes darted to McCoy, and the doctor had to steel himself against the heat there.  He was cracking wide open.  All McCoy had to do was drive the stake home.

“After all this is said and done, Spock, you must know that they’ll pin a medal on your chest for it and turn over the Enterprise to you.”  He could see the fine tremble across the thin shoulders now.  He gulped a breath.  This could come apart on him, and he was no test against Spock’s Vulcan strength.  “I’d have never thought it of you, Spock, that all you wanted was Jim’s command.”

McCoy was so sure Spock would strike out at him that very muscle in his body bunched, ready to resist the impact.  But it never came.  Instead, Spock very slowly and deliberately set aside the leather box that he had been holding and pulled out a record disc from the depths of the safe.  He slid it into the vid-monitor and then stood.  McCoy had to force himself to stay standing still with Spock a mere hairsbreadth from his shoulder, his back stiff as he stood nearly at attention, perhaps a last honor for his lost captain.

“Spock, McCoy, if you are both watching this, then we must assume that I am dead, the tactical situation is dire, and the two of you are locked in mortal combat.”

McCoy’s breath rushed out of him like he’d been punched in the gut.  Beside him, he felt Spock jerk just slightly in shock.  It rattled them both to see Jim, talking to them like he was there, like he could look right out of the screen and see the terrible struggle between their two iron wills.

“Spock,” Kirk continued, “the ship is yours to command.  I know you’ll use every avenue of logic to get it and the crew out of danger, but don’t rely on that alone.  Try to use some good old human intuition.  If you can’t find it, seek out McCoy.  McCoy, help him if you can, but remember, he is in command.  Spock, listen to McCoy, if you find his advise sound, take it.”

There was a long pause while Kirk stared into the recorder.  McCoy was still reeling from shock, but he could see the look in Jim’s eyes, could almost hear the words that weren’t spoken, and they were all for Spock.

“Take care.”

The screen went dark.

Both men stood in silence, contemplating those last words, contemplating each other.  McCoy was a romantic at heart, and wished for Spock’s sake that Jim had been able to make some more personal farewell to his second in command, but what could he have said, knowing that McCoy, or perhaps even some stranger, would be standing there at Spock’s shoulder listening.

“I’m sorry, Spock,” McCoy said quietly.  He meant it in way of an apology for the grief that Spock must surely be harboring somewhere beneath that tough exterior, and for all the awful things he’d said over that last few hours.  “It hurts doesn’t it?”

Spock swallowed hard.  “What would you have me say, Doctor?

McCoy stood dumbly for a moment, staring at Spock.  Spock stared back.  His eyes were vacant now, and that scared McCoy worse than the rage that had shadowed them earlier.

\-----

“Spock!  Mr. Spock!”

“Uhura?”  McCoy dropped his tricorder and reached out for the flailing woman just as she collapsed into his arms.  “Uhura!  What is it?”

“Captain…I saw the Captain.  I must find Mr. Spock!”  Uhura tugged weakly at McCoy’s grip.  “Please, Doctor, help me find Mr. Spock.”

“Now, now, Uhura, you just come along with me,” McCoy hushed her as he would small frightened child.  She leaned into him, clinging to his uniform shirt.

“Please, Dr. McCoy, you must believe me.  I saw the Captain!  I’m not going crazy…am I?”

“Uhura, we’d all like to see him, but you’re under a great deal of stress, and I think you should just come with me and have a lie down.”

She shook her head in protest, but passed out a moment later.  McCoy called for a couple of orderlies to help him get her to sickbay and then called the bridge.

“Bridge, this is McCoy.  Spock?”

“Mr. Spock is in his quarters, Doctor,” Sulu’s voice came over the intercom.

McCoy raised an eyebrow in surprise.  It wasn’t like Spock to give himself any kind of respite while there was still danger lurking.  He brushed it aside.  The man was still part human, after all, he had to rest at some point.  “Well, tell him we’ve got another case.  I’m taking Uhura to sickbay.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“McCoy out.”

McCoy escorted Uhura’s anti-grav  gurney to sickbay promising himself that he’d check in on Spock as soon as he got there.

\-----

Spock lay alone in Jim’s quarters.  He had come with the intentions to meditate.  Or at least that’s what he had told himself.  Instead of stretched out and relaxed in the traditional pose of reclining meditation, Spock was curled in on himself in a fetal ball, his long fingers wrapped tight around a small engraved metal disc.  Every breath was short and sharp and brought the lingering scent of Jim.  He had never intended this.  He had responsibilities that needed his immediate attention.  He was Vulcan.  This was human weakness.

But he could not bring himself to move.

He stretched out long fingers on the pillow beside him.  He pushed back against the desire to reach just an inch further.  If he did, perhaps Jim’s head would be there, and he would be able to run his fingers through those soft golden waves.   Jim would turn his face into that palm and nuzzle it with his smooth cheek and breath warm and alive across it.

Spock’s fist knotted convulsively.  He sucked in a harsh and unforgiving breath.  In one smooth motion he rolled from the bed and stood, tugged at his uniform shirt, and strode to the door before his heart could protest this vicious tearing away from what it needed most.  He paused for one moment, his fingers still reflexively locked around the metal disc in his hand.  He closed his eyes, breathed, and opened his hand.  He was out the door and many strides down the hallway to the turbo lift before the disc hit the carpet with a soft thud.

\-----

Scotty ground a fist into his palm.  He was frustrated.  He was losing men to this mental disorder, or whatever it was, and Spock was refusing to take them out of here.  True, it looked unlikely that the Tholians were just going to turn a blind eye while the Enterprise warped away, but Spock was content to sit and watch that damnable web outside grow larger by the hour and not move a muscle in any direction.

A young technician, Harvey or something like, walked by and wobbled a bit and pinched the bridged of his nose.  Scotty laid a hand on his shoulder,

“You all right, laddy?”

“Yes, fine, Mr. Scott,” the young man replied.  Scotty squeezed his arm, not letting him move on until the boy looked up and smiled lopsidedly in an effort to reassure his commander.  Scotty patted him and nodded him off.

“Damn you, Mr. Spock,” he muttered under his breath.  He moved to the wall com and punched the switch.  “Bridge?  This is engineering.”

“Mr. Scott, can I help you?”  Spock.  Cool as a cucumber, not a feather ruffled on that one, boy-o.  Scott gritted his teeth.  Jim Kirk dead and not so much as a blink from the bastard.  Normally, Scotty found Spock amiable enough, and enjoyed indulging in the occasional joke at his expense or some good natured teasing; but he could not understand how Spock could watch Jim die like that and not so much as bat an eyelash.  It was all business as usual to him.

“Are we moving into inter-phase, Mr. Spock?”

“Mr. Scott, we are relatively stable at the moment.  Is there a problem?”

“I’ve lost two men already to this—whatever it is, and the engines won’t—”  Scotty stuttered to a halt as he turned from the control panel he had been auditing while he talked and looked up at the catwalk on the opposite side of the engineering room.  A transparent shape hovered midway down the catwalk stairs.  A shape that looked very much like a supposedly deceased captain of Scotty’s close acquaintance.

“Captain…” Scotty whispered.

Spock’s whole body flinched at the Engineer’s whispered word.  He was very aware that Scotty was not addressing him.

“Mr. Scott, is there a problem?” Spock asked very deliberately.

McCoy came onto the bridge.  “Spock, I’ve just taken Uhura to sickbay, she’s been yelling about seeing the captain and—”

“Captain Kirk?”

McCoy froze a step from Spock’s shoulder.  “Scotty?  Scotty, what did you say?”  He leaned in over the intercom.  He glanced from Spock to the speaker and then back again.. The Vulcan’s eyes were dark, black with some barely contained rage, but backlit by a faint spark that McCoy could only call hope.

“Captain Kirk!”  

Scotty’s voice was frantic with its own hope now.  

“Spock,” McCoy grabbed Spock’s arm with both hands, “you have got to get us out of here!  Uhura said she saw the Captain, now Scotty, too!  We can’t afford to lose him.  We lose Scotty and we’ll never escape this!”

Spock looked down at McCoy’s hands on his arm.  McCoy loosened his grip and backed up a step.

“Sorry, Spock.”

Spock nodded imperceptibly.  “I believe the Captain would say, “Forget it, Bones.””

McCoy swallowed hard and dipped his head to try and regain his composure.  Spock turned his attention back to the intercom and Scotty.

“Mr. Scott, are you all right?”

There was silence for a few long seconds while Scotty collected himself.  “Yes, sir.  Fine, Mr. Spock.”

“Very good.  Please inform me when the engines are back to full power.”

“Aye, Mr. Spock.”

McCoy advanced on Spock again, “Spock, you’ve got to—”

He cut himself off as he gazed, saucer eyed, over Spock’s shoulder.

“Doctor?” Spock queried.  Something pulled at the back of his mind.  Something familiar.  He rotated his chair slowly.

Jim.

Spock’s breath rushed out of him and he lurched from his chair before he thought.  His fingers caught at the metal deck railing and curled there with crushing force.  Something to ground him to reality, anything.

“Spock, do you see it?”

“Yes, Doctor, I do.”

“Spock is he…?”

Spock remained motionless for one more heartbeat as he gazed at the transparent and fading image of Jim Kirk.  He sprang to the com.

“Transporter room, prepare to beam the Captain on board from the following coordinates on my command.”  

Spock’s eyes did not leave the wavering image as he spoke.  His long fingers flexed and curled at his sides.  His mind itched with the almost connection of that oh so familiar link that the two men shared.  Kirk’s lips moved in slow motion and Spock could just pick out his name before the apparition faded completely.

Spock was moving the instant Kirk’s image faded.  One long stride took him to the science station where he started to feed computations into the computer faster than McCoy’s eyes could follow his flying fingers.  “Doctor, please go to the transporter room.  The Captain will be out of oxygen and in need of your care.”

McCoy didn’t argue.   He was still too stunned.  He turned on his heel and was calling for nurse Chapel before the turbo lift doors closed.

Spock cast a look over his shoulder, giving into a very human hope, but the apparition was gone.  He felt a sick heat crawl along his spine making his whole body shake.  Hold on, Jim.  Please, hold on.  I’m coming.

For just a moment the link they shared had been alive, but it had faded away with the ghostly apparition.  Spock grappled with the emptiness left behind, trying to track down some remnant of that link.  He pushed his mind to the limits, layer upon layer of calculations working at the same time, his fingers moving at blinding speed feeding them to the transporter.  He silently cursed the transfer delay from his station to the transporters computer.

Faster!  Must go faster.  I’m coming, Jim…

Spock logged in the last computations and punched the comm., “Transporter room.  Now.”

Spock did not wait for an acknowledgement, nor did he even wait for the familiar hum of the start of the transporter cycle.  He was in the turbo lift in three strides with only a nod to Sulu to pass command of the con.

Once the doors shut, Spock sagged.  His iron control was slipping away, and he did not know if he could withstand the impact of arriving to failure in the transporter room.  But he had to go, he had to know.  He jerked himself erect as the turbo lift slowed, and sucked in a breath as the doors opened.

McCoy was just ducking in the door of the transporter room and Spock could hear the frequency change in the transport cycle as Scotty fought the controls, trying to pull the Captain’s pattern from near nothingness.  Spock reached the door as the hum faded and died away.

He rounded the corner.

McCoy crouched on the edge of the transporter pad, a pale and sweating Jim Kirk leaning heavily against his side while Nurse Chapel rotated hypo sprays as fast as McCoy could find bare skin to inject them.

Spock stood in the door, shoulders pulled severely back, hands knotted behind his back, his spine aching in the effort to restrain himself.  Kirk panted heavily, taking in great gulps of oxygen.  He looked on the edge of passing out.  McCoy planted one more hypo spray on him and then passed his kit to Nurse Chapel.

“That should hold you until I can get you to sick bay.  Spock, give me hand, will you?”  McCoy pushed himself under Kirk’s right arm and glanced at Spock, “Well, come on!  I need to get him out of this gear and into diagnostics.”

Spock moved.  In one fluid motion, he was beneath Kirk’s opposite shoulder and lifting the majority of his weight easily as the Doctor did more steering than lifting.  The trip to sick bay was short and as soon as they had hefted Kirk up onto the bio bed McCoy shooed Spock to the doorway to keep him out from under foot.  Nurse Chapel handed out instructions to orderlies on divesting the Captain of his space suit while McCoy activated scanners.  

Spock remained in the doorway, immovable as an obelisk of volcanic obsidian and just as dark as his eyes swept every move and motion with an intense scrutiny.  His mind reached out, searching, constantly sweeping the ether for that spark that was Jim Kirk, but Jim had still not regained enough coherency to acknowledge Spock’s presence.

“Doctor, your report.”

McCoy stopped in his motions of entering data on his pad and lifted an eyebrow at the Vulcan.  Spock’s voice was thick and low, a contrast to his usual clipped tone.  He glanced at Kirk and then back at Spock.  “He’s suffering severe oxygen deprivation.  I think we got him just in time, but it’ll be a little while before we know if he’s going to make a full recovery.”

McCoy tapped a few last notes into his pad and then moved past Spock to his office.

Spock waited until the door to the Doctor’s office had closed before he took a step toward Jim’s bed.  His hands were stiff at his sides, aching to touch bare flesh and affirm that this was no apparition laying before him.  He stepped up to the bed.

_Jim_ _._   Spock called gently.  He put his fingertips very lightly to Jim’s face and called again.  Please, Jim, come back to me.

_Spock_ …

Spock nearly lost contact.  His breath caught in his throat, and his eyes burned at the weakened state of the mind link.  _Jim, I am here_.

 _Spock.  You stayed_.

 _Yes.  T’hy’la_.

_Darkness…everywhere darkness…Spock!_

Spock thrust himself forward in the link taking Jim’s mind into his and cradling it securely.  He bathed it in a diffuse glow of warmth.  He felt Jim relax within Spock’s mental protection.  _Hush, Jim.  I am here.  You are safe.  There is no more darkness.  Rest._

Kirk’s mind slowly drifted toward sleep.

\-----

McCoy finished up his report on the Captain and went back to check on his charge.  

He froze inside the doorway.  Spock was standing at Kirk’s bedside, his right hand on the Captain’s face in the manner of the Vulcan mind meld.  His eyes were closed.  His left hand was at Kirk’s shoulder, fingers curled there firmly.  His face was stained with a glistening line from a single tear.

“Spock?” McCoy asked softly.  He did not want to jolt Spock from whatever trance he was in.  If he was indeed connected to Kirk, the shock could be painful if Spock was startled from his concentration.

Spock heard McCoy’s soft query, but he was loath to let go of Jim’s mind.  He was so weak.  The link between them, stretched to a tenuous thread through time and sub-dimensional space, was a gossamer line that Spock had to hold with all the strength inside him to keep from crumbling apart.  Jim was drained completely, unable to focus, or do anything more than react to Spock’s mind inside the link.  His body as well was depleted beyond its ability to function, having tapped every reserve available to it and then, in the end, fed only by Jim’s unwillingness to die.  Spock withdrew a little way, gently, and felt a shudder and immediate panic grasping at the delicate tether of the link.

 _Hush, Jim.  I am only bringing us back to consciousness_.

 _Spock!  Don’t go_!

 _I am here, Spock soothed.  Do not fight.  I will be with you_.

Spock felt an uneasy calm settle into the link, and he pulled gently away, this time meeting no resistance.

McCoy glowered at Spock across the bed.  He clenched and unclenched his fingers around his stylus and unconsciously rattle-tapped it against his thigh in impatience.  The Vulcan was exhibiting some damn unusual behavior, and McCoy wanted an explanation.

Spock’s eyes slowly came open and focused on McCoy.  He let his hands slide just as slowly away from Kirk’s face and shoulder.  McCoy did not miss the minute straightening of the shoulders and back, or the lifting of that chiseled jaw.  He narrowed his eyes at the Vulcan, but Spock’s gaze gave nothing away.  He turned his attention to Kirk.

“Jim?  Jim, can you hear me?  Are you still with us?”

Kirk’s eyelids fluttered and opened.  He squinted up at McCoy, and for an instant the doctor perceived something that he could only describe as sheer terror.  But the blue gaze cleared and focused inward for a moment and then Jim Kirk smiled his trademark lopsided smile.  

“Bones.”

McCoy’s breath came out in a rush, and he smiled in return.  “Thought we’d lost you.”

“Mmm, so did I, Bones.  So, did I.”  Kirk rolled his shoulders forward and tried to sit up.  McCoy grasped his elbow to aid him and did not miss the assisting hand Spock put at the small of Kirk’s back.  Kirk cast a half glance and a smile over his shoulder.  McCoy scowled.

“You should rest, Jim.  It’s going to take a day or so for you to get back to rights.  I’d like to keep you here—”

“Uh-uh, Bones.  I’m going to my quarters.  You can lock me in there if you like, but I’m not staying in sick bay,” Kirk countered.  He slid off the edge of the bed.

“Whoa!  You’re not going anywhere until after I’ve cleared you, Mister,” McCoy snapped.  He planted a hand on Jim’s bare chest and pressed him back to the bed.  The blue on blue eyes snapped up to his and it was there again, that wild terror.  McCoy grimaced and pulled back.

Kirk perched half on the bed, half off, caught between shrinking away from what, he could not say.  He felt Spock’s hand spread across his lower back, warm and nearly vibrating with energy.  It calmed him and brought him back to himself.  He settled his weight forward on his feet, taking time to gain his balance and grabbed for his shirt on a hook nearby.

McCoy wanted to stop him, to shove him back on the bio bed, to force him to undergo every test in the medical archive to find out where that sudden terror was coming from.  But the doctor’s gaze drifted to Spock’s face and all his objections fell away.  Never in all the years McCoy had served with the Vulcan had Spock ever betrayed any emotion, save on the one occasion that Spock feared Kirk had been killed by his own hand; but his eyes were raw now with a hurricane of feelings, some of which had yet to be named. McCoy’s heart betrayed him and he stepped back.  

Somewhere, while McCoy was concerning himself with breaking the Vulcan for the sheer joy of it, Spock had fallen in love, and the love that he had chosen was one of the hardest any man ever could.  His competition was such that his heart, if he had one, and it was obvious now that he did, was sure to be broken at some point.  Jim Kirk was in love with his ship.  McCoy would have said there was no room for any other kind of love in Jim’s heart, but maybe—just maybe—he had been wrong.  

“If I let you out of here, you’ll just go to the bridge!” McCoy objected, trying one last time to keep his Captain inside his sphere of influence.  “Even if I do get you to your quarters, you’ll just try and command this ship from your bed!”

“I’d do that from in here, Bones,” Kirk grinned.  “But, I promise to have Mr. Spock escort me straight to my quarters and lock me inside.  Will that make you happy?”

McCoy grumbled some more, but Kirk just grinned again and clapped him on the shoulder.

“Mr. Spock, if you please?”  Kirk made a motion to the door.  Spock came around the bed and very discreetly tucked his hand in at Kirk’s elbow and let the Captain lean on him as they made their way out of sick bay, McCoy glaring after them.

\-----

Kirk remained silent on their short journey through the ships corridors, taking a route that avoided contact with the majority of the crew to save Kirk from having to spend precious energy that he did not have accepting greetings and good wishes.

“I think we’re going to have some explaining to do to the good doctor when this all blows over,” Kirk said quietly.  Spock nodded his silent agreement.  “He’s never going to let you live this down.”

“Indeed not.”

Kirk faltered a bit and Spock caught at his elbow and slowed their pace just a bit.

“Although, I think you will find the good doctor much better informed than you presume.”

It was Kirk’s turn to raise an eyebrow.  “Was I that obvious?”

“No,” Spock paused.  “I was.”

Kirk stared up at the profile of Spock’s impassible face.  He could read nothing in those hard cut lines and was hard pressed to understand how McCoy might have gleaned enough to discover where Spock’s heart truly lay.

Spock released the lock on Kirk’s quarters and guided him inside.  Kirk paused when the toe of his boot caught on an object lying just inside the doorway.  Spock bent quickly to retrieve the medallion he had dropped earlier in the day and tried to slip it out of Kirk’s sight before he noticed it, but Jim was too quick.  He grabbed Spock’s wrist and picked the medallion from his open palm.

When he saw what it was, he sucked in a sharp breath.  His heart squeezed painfully in his chest and he dropped weakly into a chair.  Spock had given this medallion to him only a few months ago.  He had not said anything about it, in fact, he had not even given it to Kirk in person.  He had left it for him to find after a duty shift.  Kirk had researched the ancient carving, finding little of use in the archives and finally having to call in a favor from Spock’s Mother, Amanda, who had scoured her husband’s extensive library until she had found an answer.  Kirk’s shock at the meaning of the symbol had caused him to keep it locked safely away ever since.  He had not even acknowledged its receipt to Spock for fear of misunderstanding what the Vulcan had meant when he had given it.  And Kirk had been none too sure himself of how he even felt at knowing Spock’s feelings ran that deep.

Staring at it now, he felt a little ashamed and embarrassed for Spock’s sake.   It had not even occurred to him that someone would find it if he were to die in the line of duty.  This must have been how McCoy had found them out, and it must have been torture for Spock to be so…exposed.

 “Oh, Spock…”

“Jim?” Spock knelt down quickly, afraid Jim was taking a turn for the worse.

Jim raised his eyes to Spock’s.  “I’m so sorry to have put you through that, Spock.”

Spock frowned and covered the hand that held the Vulcan medallion with his own.  “Do not apologize.”

“I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for you.”  Kirk smiled wryly, though his eyes shown with sympathetic tears.  “He must have grilled you to no end.”

“He did not see it.”

“Then how did he…?”

Spock cradled Jim’s hand in his and marveled at the contrasting skin tones. The two of them were all about contrasts, it was what made them work so well together.  His hands were thinner and his fingers longer than Jim’s, all in all making them look larger.  But Jim’s hands made up in strength what they may have lacked in size, just like all the rest of him.

“Dr. McCoy is extremely perceptive, and I made several—choices—that lacked in complete logical analysis which eventually lead him to deduce that I was affected by your absence far more than I was admitting.”

“In other words, you thought I was dead, and you were crushed.”  Kirk said the words with a teasing lilt, but when Spock raised his eyes, he wished he’d thought better.

“Yes.”

“Spock, I didn’t mean—”

Spock put a hand against Jim’s chest, let it rest there as though he were measuring the breaths in and out.  “If I had not been able to—recover you—Jim, I would not have been able to go on.  While the Doctor believes that I have no emotions, as do most humans who are not well acquainted with Vulcan, it is not the truth.  We have them in deeper wells than can be perceived by any human being.  And the—bond—that we share is such that, if stripped from me by your death, I would follow not long after.”

Kirk sucked in a breath at Spock’s confession. He had seen far deeper into Spock’s heart than anyone else had ever been allowed, but this was territory untread by any soul until this very moment.  “Spock, you would be able to go on.  Your strength is—is unmatched!  You would hurt, but surely you would be able to find another after time.”

Kirk’s words sounded a little trite to his own ears, but he recognized it as a way to dodge the intensity of Spock’s words, and he wanted to kick himself for trying to belittle the moment.  His fingers clenched and unclenched around the medallion.  Amanda’s findings had been correct.  Spock had given himself over to Kirk body and soul in silence.

And Kirk had not even acknowledged it.

_Oh, Spock…_

“No, Jim, Spock replied quietly.  “Once bonded, the Vulcan male is unable to mate ever again.  Rather than bare the pain of the severed connection and a remaining life of loneliness, he chooses to die as well.”

“Spock…I didn’t realize,” Kirk whispered.

“It is not spoken of because it is intrinsic to us, and I did not tell you because I did not want you to bear the burden.  It can be…frightening.”  He paused and his next words came out low and underpinned by a bottomless pain, “I can see from your eyes that it is to you.”

“No!” Jim objected immediately.  He didn’t care that he might be lying.  And he was.  In a way.  “No, it’s not that.  I—I don’t know how to describe it, Spock.”

Jim was floundering.  His mind was starting to come unfocused in its already weakended state.  Spock could feel the darkness that had enveloped Jim’s mind earlier creeping back.  This was not the time to reveal the depths of his soul.  That could wait…had to wait.  Jim was slipping.  Spock’s revelations to him were pushing him to the edge of that darkness, and Spock had to draw him back.  Before it was too late.

Jim felt Spock reaching into him.  He waivered a moment, suddenly unsure after Spock’s declarations; but, at his back, he could feel a terrible threat lurking just beyond his vision.  It was there.  That darkness that had held him captive, until Spock had reached in and plucked him from danger, was there again.  And Spock was here again, too, to rescue him, but this time Jim was afraid to reach out.  

How could he have ever come to mean so much to the Vulcan?  How could he have let this happen?  He had kept himself apart from everything to protect himself and to protect them.  Only his beloved ship had ever laid claim to the deepest parts of his heart.  Only she could have his soul.

Spock felt Jim’s hesitation and it tore a gash across his heart.

Never before had Jim doubted, never before had he not reached for Spock’s strength when it was needed.  Now he cringed from the safety Spock offered because it came with the price of a life.  Jim realized suddenly that his own life was more valuable.  His existence was necessary to someone besides himself.  And it frightened him.  Spock realized abruptly how expendable Jim had believed himself to be.  

The link faltered under Jim’s indecision, and Spock felt the darkness slither forward.

It was rooted in Jim’s own mind.  It was the embodiment of the terror he felt being trapped and helpless in that place in between.  Spock reached for the meld points at Jim’s temple and jaw.  Jim jerked involuntarily, almost as though to escape that powerful grip, but Spock held on.  He hated himself for what he was about to do, it would be tantamount to rape if Jim did not submit, but he would not lose the man he loved to this kind of terror of the mind.  Not after he had just saved him from the jaws of death.

Spock plunged forward.

He usually slid into Jim’s mind like water over pebbles, but this time he moved like a torrent after the spring rains in the desert, slamming into weakened and ill prepared barriers and breaking them down like so much dried earth baked too long by the sun.  He pounded past Jim’s insubstantial defense and enveloped him, wrapping him firmly inside his own barriers.  

The darkness bloomed from within.

_Spock!_

Spock trembled at the mental outcry.  This was his Jim.  This was the Jim that needed him, wanted him, did not care that their lives were linked so intimately now.  This was the part of Jim that belonged to Spock, and this was the part that he had to save.  He forcibly stilled Jim’s conscious mind that still waivered in doubt and tried to fend Spock off in its uncertainty.  Then he reached out for the subconscious that was floundering in the dark.

 _I am here, Jim.  Hold onto me_.  

Spock dared direct contact with Jim’s subconscious.  It was a fragile thing to do, even for a full blood Vulcan.  The subconscious was volatile and uncontrolled, even in a Vulcan mind.  It was a place to be ventured only with the permission of the person under the meld, lest they unintentionally harm the one performing it.

He moved above the whirlpool of black nothingness and reached down and down until he felt Jim reach back.  He grabbed hold of the tenuous connection and pulled back with a steady strength.

 _This is not real anymore, T’hy’la.  You are safe.  You are with me_.

Jim’s subconscious grasped at Spock’s life giving line and clung to him tightly.  Spock’s heart swelled painfully.  This was the truth.  This was Jim loving him.  This was the spring from whence came all that Jim had to offer.  Jim might not consciously be able to accept Spock as his bondmate, but at the root of his soul no lie could be told, and they belonged to each other completely.

Jim felt Spock inside his mind like a force of nature.  He waged battle against the dark that froze Jim’s blood as though he had been thrust into the deep cold of space and left for dead.  But that was exactly what had happened.  He had been out there in that cold, alone, until Spock had found a way to pull him back.  Spock had not given up.  Spock had saved him.  And not just for duty and friendship. 

 Spock had saved him for love.  

Some part of Jim revolted against that idea.  He could not mean so much to anyone!  It wasn’t safe!  And yet, deep inside, in a place that Spock was looking right now—because he could see it through Spock’s eyes—there was a spark that would not die.  It flared and grew bright in the lee of Spock’s strength while the darkness broke around him and shattered itself and dissipated into silence.

“Spock…”

Spock’s hands slipped away from Jim’s face.  He slumped forward, drained.

Jim grasped Spock’s hands hard in his.  “Spock, I don’t…I don’t know what to say.”

“Say nothing,” Spock replied softly.  He gently disentangled his hands from Jim’s and pulled them into his lap.

Jim did not miss the fine tremble in those long fingers as Spock pulled away from him.  He could see the shadow creeping back into those already dark eyes, and if he concentrated he could feel the whisper of a soul deep pain resonating in their link.

“Spock, you need to understand,” Jim began quietly.  “I thought I knew what you felt for me.  I thought I knew what I  felt for you.”  He paused, groping for words.  “What I just saw—what you just showed me…I had no idea, Spock.”

Spock gazed into Jim’s eyes, and then slowly lifted two fingers to his cheek and brushed ever so lightly.  “T’hy’la…”

Jim nearly choked on a quiet sob.  He held Spock’s gaze a moment longer and then gave into the sudden tide rising inside him.  He dropped the medallion and drove his fingers into Spock’s thick hair and pulled him forward.  He paused only a fraction from Spock’s mouth, breathing in the heat of him, and then plunged forward.

Spock came undone beneath Jim’s mouth.  He opened himself without reservation and tumbled forward, heart, mind and soul into the space that belonged to them alone.  He took Jim’s mind into his own and in turn sank into Jim’s.  Sharp, bright, gold fused with quicksilver, iridescent blue as the two of them melded in the space between.

Jim fell open beneath Spock’s hands and mind, taking the Vulcan into himself, deeper than he ever had before.  Finally, he understood the darkness.  It had not been the darkness of empty space that had terrorized him and left him so bereft.  It had been the darkness of aloneness.  The darkness of a mind empty of this amazing presence that was filling him up to overflowing.  It had been the darkness of a life without Spock.  

Jim wept silent tears, and felt gentle lips kiss them away.  He reached out,

 _Forever, Spock…my love_.

_Yes, my T’hy’la!_

 


End file.
